In the Serpent's Den
by Eriatta
Summary: Harry finds himself speaking in Parseltongue after a curse strikes him. Draco is a damn fine Healer, and he is assigned to Harry's case, and among discovering the cure to Harry's ailment, he would be required to discover why hearing Harry speak on Parseltongue sets him on fire. Slash. EWE. COMPLETE.
1. He Who Must Not Speak

_**Story has been updated a little and have some minor changes that DO NOT alter the current line whatsoever, but is a little more enjoyable to read now. However, it is still not beta-ed, if you would like to do this story that favor, please message me!**_

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It was a normal day. The sun shone bright, all was well in the wizarding world.

Except maybe for the raiding party furiously throwing hexes, on a desolated side of Knockturn alley. Mostly dark curses were violently exploding down walls, cracking or scorching stone here and there, heads would pop like moles out of holes, a hex would be thrown and then the head would hide with the expertise and flow of someone doing this for years, and men! …They might as well had been on hiding for years.

Aurors were on the opposite side of the conflict, as expected, holding down as they could the situation. The most riskier ones were trying to win ground on the alley, but with all the curses going on, that was nearly a suicide wish.

So then it was time to get the big guys out. Red sparks went flying up to the upmost wall of the alley.

A pop sounded near one of the Aurors, turning, a Redhead saw with bliss and a welcoming, but weary, smile on his lips the silhouette of his partner, friend and most brilliant Auror in the department –and himself too– appear and clap his shoulder. Not saying anything, just nodding to get the briefing.

Obviously, they would bring Harry to this case, thought Ron, giving him the warm-up as fast and exact as he could get with the explosions bursting and interrupting him, but Harry was rapt, hearing him well enough to have a scowl firmly parked on his brow.

Wand on hand, Harry did what he always did, started to get the Aurors whom were nearer to do exactly what always got them out of this kind of situations unscathed and safely home. Getting a few orders here and there, the group started the formation, the ones nearer the wall approached the suicidal squad in the front to let them know Harry was there and the new plan of action.

All set, Harry gave the sign to Ron, who just nodded curtly and began chanting. Other three Aurors did too. They were few in number but cleverer in matters of handling Dark wizards trying to break havoc on his territory.

Harry did not chant, but was in charge of setting up wards for them. Since Ron, Amanda –another Auror whom he commanded to step up with them, who was also as brilliant and quick-handed when throwing defensive spells was called for–, and him were going to approach the hostile group and force them down with direct hexes and not the hide and seek game they were playing until now.

Harry was assigned to most cases, but as backup. He was not given Hero privileges or anything. He just had a life and also appreciated his safety, so he made a pretty damn good impression of himself and were posted as near as Head of Aurors he could be: Head of a Hit-Wizard Division for quick not-so-demanding cases and Backup Senior Auror for _these _particular cases. He was okay with that. It cost him three full years of full time hands-on Auror duty, but it was worth it.

Now he just seemed to get to the places to get things _done._ As expected.

And yes, he got the job done.

As they stepped out of the alley wall, with thick wards around them, the hexes from the other side ceased for a split second, but then they became nastier and even angrier. This was not a game anymore, hopefully, the incantation the other Aurors were supporting, made that kind of hexes harmless upon casting.

Harry started getting his curses out, as powerful and legal as possible. Ron too was quick to follow while Amanda helped putting up shields, to block whatever else could or might get past Harry's wards. Some minutes into this slow curse, advance, curse, pause, curse, rhythm; something went flying over them like a torpedo aimed to harm.

Amanda was quick to put a shield up a meter in front of them but the object went by as if nothing could stop it, directly to her face.

Auror and Quidditch reflexes did Harry no good when he catched the object with his left hand, without even thinking, two inches from Amanda's forehead.

The ball, a green crystal clear sphere started to cloud inside and became even murkier and in seconds it was dark-acid green and burning Harry's hand like a branding stick.

Shouting, Harry tried to get rid of the ball, and throw curses still. By now, seven out of the other twelve Dark wizards were out scattered away from the others, some really badly injured, but his companions were paying no mind to them.

The pain, burning sensation and burnt flesh smell got Harry sufficiently worked up to fire a curse barely legal which Hermione had been strongly against him using nowhere around people or even in almost live-or-die situations if there were people around him.

Fuck it. Ron could stand it and Amanda was desperately strengthening his own wards.

He leaped to his feet one second not knowing when he kneeled down. Then he motioned a wide circle with his wand arm, like throwing a lash, pointing at the Dark wizards left there.

"_Hostibus Exarserit_!" he cried out loud over the searing sensation and adrenaline.

All bodies fell to the floor convulsing violently for a few seconds and then went rigid like with a body binding spell, Ron and Amanda made faces of pain which were almost gone when they turned to him.

In a hiss, Harry managed to mutter "Please take care of them," teeth bared and dropping to his knees one more time grabbing his wrist which he felt was about to split or detach from his body. The ball was still dark, the cloud of smoke inside was swirling furiously. Harry tried a couple of spells to get it off but nothing was happening.

"_Agramento_!" he shouted angrier than when he casted the mind flaring curse, but that only made the ball swirl more.

Ron was beside him trying to think of something, Amanda was nowhere near, maybe taking the Dark wizards bodies together with the other Aurors, since they knew that Ron was enough to be around Harry when they were busy cleaning up.

However, he felt the ball burn more intently the next minute; he bit down on his lip to stop from shouting even more. This made it draw blood instantly. The sphere glowed vivid green when a drop of his blood dripped and touched its surface, then it rolled and disappeared inside Harry's hand like melting ice. And sure it felt cold too, but all his body felt cold next, and he started shivering uncontrollably.

He mumbled something to Ron who had him already gathered up on his arms and told him to brace himself since he was going to apparate.

Well, that lasted and eternity and when they reached St. Mungo's, Harry already passed out, cold, purple lipped, eyes rolling back and all.

-.-.-

Ron was pacing up and down the corridor out of Harry's room; Hermione, Ginny and Arthur were there. Mrs. Weasley was taking care of Rose at the Burrow.

Ginny was leaning against the wall opposite the waiting couch, Mr. Weasley was sitting next to Hermione who had his face against her knees, hands clasped together in front of her crown.

"Ron, drilling the floor won't get you to Harry," observed Ginny on a clipped and low voice, but gently.

"Maybe we could knock? Surely, they had some news by now."

Just right when Mr. Weasley was voicing his thought, the door to the room swooshed open and a tall figure followed by two nurses, came out of the room. The nurses bowed them. One entered the room again; the other nurse stepped aside and went away with a thick file, hurrying off to archive it.

"Malfoy?!" was the croak who left Ron's mouth, making him wince, clear his throat politely and then phrase the question again. Grudge gone and all, Ron was still weary of the Malfoy name, even after this particular one redeemed himself in the best manner possible.

Draco Malfoy became a Healer. A rather fine Healer. He was vastly knowledgeable on Potions and an expert on Curses and Dark ailments caused by them.

_Funny_, thought Ron, that he was going to treat Harry. But he stuck with being polite for Harry's sake and only his sake.

"Healer Malfoy," he corrected with a nod of acknowledgement "How is he? When is he going to wake up?"

"Mr. Weasley… and family," Malfoy answered also politely curt, putting his eyes on all of them one by one in one fluid motion. "Mr. Potter appears to be fine. We didn't find the sphere you described inside any of his organs or body parts, solidified at least." Uneasy pause.

"However, there is a curse on him, which I will have to keep on checking and investigating. It is something rather unique." When he saw mouths about to open, not only in front of him, but also at the back, he quickly added, "It is very serious but nothing is threatening his life at the immediate moment. He is stable, the coldness which accompanied him over here is gone, and it was his body's response to fighting off the curse as the immunologic system will do for a common illness," he explained on his most professional tone.

Sighs were collective on the hallway and Hermione stood up at last, Ron was at a loss of words now. Malfoy thought that was her cue, and that was their mechanics, as a married couple will be expected to act, when one failed, the other would be there holding on. Malfoy almost sighed.

"Can we go inside? Even if he is not awake, we want to see him," her voice small, it did not seem at all like her, the strong and collected Ministry worker she was.

"You shall, but only after the nurse is done with the last check-up," he looked at his watch briefly "She should be done by now."

Just a handful of seconds after, the nurse opened the door, wide eyed, speaking directly to Malfoy.

"He, He is awake, Mr. Malfoy, but, He…" the nurse pursed her lips in a worried fashion she was used to do when something out of the ordinary happened with his patients –which was awfully constant– so she just shook her head and stepped aside the open door.

Malfoy was quick to follow, he motioned the nurse to close the door and hold the anxious waiters outside.

Surprisingly, Potter was up and more to that, _sitting_ on the bed as if he just had a nap. Draco swiped his wand and the desired file appeared on his hand. He took a short magic quill from his inner pocket and stared at Harry intently.

Harry looked at him in surprise, as if he was trying to remember Malfoy, but also as if he could not associate him with the room he was in.

"How are you feeling Mr. Potter?" was Malfoy's only question.

Potter kept his eyes on him some more; he seemed to be deciding on an answer.

"I feel… fine, I guess," he said, in a low voice, sounding too hoarse and whispery. He thought it was due to his fore-night trip to lalaland.

However, Malfoy's expression was all but good. It seemed a theatre. His neck was thigh, one of the muscles on his jaw was flinching slightly every two seconds and his eyes were stuck on a fixed position.

For a solid minute, the blonde just started at him. Redness was creeping through his neck, but he blinked and a second away, it was as if nothing had happened. The professional demeanor was back on his face like a mask set in place.

Harry frowned when Malfoy just scribbled something down.

"Is something the matter, Healer Malfoy?" Harry said at last, opting for maintaining the politeness between them.

Malfoy looked up at him when he said his name, brow fussing slightly, then not. He opened his mouth as if to answer him, but he closed it again, looking fully at him. He approached him by the side. His wand moved a few times… No answer was given.

"Are you going to answer me or not, Malfoy?" Harry started feeling just a tad exasperated at this.

Malfoy looked him up in the eye when he said his name, lips pursing in concentration this time.

"I am afraid, Mr potter," he said at last, and Harry internally sighed, finally answers! "…that I cannot understand what you are saying. Please be prudent when I tell you this, you will need to stay in this room for a few more days at this given situation." He paused.

Harry opened his mouth as if to demand him to go on, but Malfoy raised his hand to stop him and went on, with a gentler, even condescending voice now, "You are speaking in Parseltongue, Potter," was his statement. "You seem to be under a tongue-binding spell. Why Parseltongue? It is something I will immediately look up, and this adds up to the effects of the curse you were bound to by that Dark sphere. So far, the only one shown," he paused one more time.

This time Harry could see the struggle in Malfoy's eyes, even with his professional and polite mask on, his grey eyes let much about what he was feeling –uneasiness, contempt, anxiety and most of it intrigue–, or was it Harry's sharp Auror-trained instinct letting him know this? Moreover, how was _he_ so collected after hearing the current state of his own health?

Malfoy blinked slowly and shook his head, "I will let your family know your state." He transfigured some objects from a near table to a muggle notebook and a muggle marker. Harry was surprised it was not parchment and quill.

He looked with bewilderment, and thought the look Malfoy gave him was of understanding, and that caught him off guard. "I would suggest you to refrain from speaking at all to them given the circumstances, as not to augment their shock. They have worried enough for the last 13 hours." The mask of professionalism was in place again, and his stand was taut and detached.

Harry nodded and raised the marker, wrote very quickly on the page and showed his brief "Thank you" to Malfoy, whom just nodded once again in that curt fashion, approaching the door with any further ado.

-.-.-

"Oh! Harry!" was the little whimper Hermione left after seeing he was okay, but as Malfoy said, he could not speak at the moment. She stared at him, and Malfoy ended up also telling them about the parseltongue part but as if he planned in telling them all along. "You are going to be okay," she whispered and came near him to hug him in one of her welcoming warmth-casting hugs.

"Even though I don't still trust him, he speaks like he knows, and has your case under control. You will be alright, I will make sure of it," was Ron's firm and comforting verdict.

"Is it true for sure?" Said Ginny from behind Ron and Hermione, staring directly at him.

He nodded but she kept on staring. So Harry sighted and said "It's true" as if intending to tell it in English, like his own will of changing his language will be enough to let him speak English again. But on his mind, and to his ears he was talking in English.

Hermione gaped, Ron scowled and Mr. Weasley shifted uneasily from the chair he was seated. Ginny, on the other hand, went on staring, not giving in.

"Say something else. Tell me your birthday, the message on the snitch Dumbledore gave you or the name of your muggle cousin. Tell me something else!" her voice was not raised, but the beat of her statement declared she was upset, not at all okay with Harry's condition. Of all of them, Ginny hated the Dark Arts and Dark artefacts more because of the diary experience. She looked at him without blinking, waiting, but he could make the shine at the corner of her eyes were building tears.

Harry said it, even when Malfoy told him not to speak. He had to do that for Ginny, she needed the confirmation, and to overcome the shock. If Malfoy was to find the counter-curse, Ginny will not rest until he did.

At last, she nodded, face falling, shoulders hunching. Harry saw the tears but moved his eyes away not to betray her and focused on Ron. He wrote, 'I'll be fine,' for him and Hermione to see and, 'Bring the others along when they can,' for Mr. Weasley, who scowled at him and said, booming, "They will come as soon as the news is out in the family, I'll bring them tomorrow."

"We will shush the reporters," said Hermione a little bit exasperated and turning back to being herself if just for a minute. "They know not a bit of privacy respect or Hospital-driven restraint. Good luck there's some of the Hit Wizards from your and Ron's group with us here, they volunteered to get them out and force them away for the term of your stay here," she smiled a little, shifting like she wanted to hug him once more.

He did not let her but smiled warmly at her, then wrote, 'You all should rest.' He hoped they understood his cue and left him to rest. Even when he woke up without any side effects, now he was feeling growingly tired.

Ginny took the hint, since she was keeping track of him whenever he scribbled, but not looking at him directly, and said, "Let's go people, let Harry rest."

Everyone bid their good byes, Ginny lingered behind, and Harry understood why. "Even though we are not together any longer, you know I will not rest until you are back to normal." He just nodded for her. "So, please be safe. I, I'm here, this time I will wait."

She had not said those words for a long, long time, and since they were out now, Harry let out a deep sigh of relief when she closed the door. That was a healed wound now.

With that in mind he moved, leaving the notebook on the bedside table, to get some sleep, eyes shutting on their own on him.

-.-.-

Back at his office, in the privacy of his four walls, Malfoy sat quietly, with a hand on his chest. His mask was still in place, but his head was burning with a thousand degrees flames.

He was in shock, all unethically and unprofessionally speaking, in shock. One thing was properly seeing Harry Potter for the first time since his trial after the war, entering his ward and then being assigned to _him_ only. Then another much entirely, reality contorting, was hearing Harry speaking in bloody _parseltongue_ again.

He thought about it on his way to his office, it gave him time to compose himself, to deal with his own sensations. Sensations he ruled over by now, and thought they ought not to show _at all_.

He breathed slowly, counting the seconds between inhalations and exhalations. It was strange, he was composed and calm, but the pang his heart and stomach had performed when hearing Potter speaking in parseltongue felt so foreign to him.

It was even amusing how he could not grasp the full swing of that feeling. He though it was surprise. he way his stomach had flipped upon hearing a particular word that sounded strangely exactly to his family name spoken out of Potters mouth, was definitely not shock or surprise.

If he could give it a name, it would not be arousal but had it really been, Excitement?


	2. Incidents

The next time he opened his eyes, Harry's view was a lot more welcoming since there was a really good smell on the room and it was coming from something right in front of his nose. It was morning; the curtains were displaying a beautiful but tender sunshine light… Or was that dusk...?

He pushed his eyes from side to side of the room but there was no one near him, just the steaming tray next to his hospital bed full of something deliciously smelling. Whose fault was it? Harry knew St. Mungo's food was not that good to even his most prominent or wealthier patients.

He seated himself on the bed, adjusted the position a little bit with his magic and was tempted to call the nurse and ask the origin of the food. But his stomach lurched and turned like a baby making a fuss, so he sighed and decided to eat first, ask later.

First taste on his food and there was a word painted all over it: Molly. He did not know how the woman got the nurses to put her food on his tray or if someone had switched it before his awakening, but he was truly grateful for the hearty meal.

Half way through the main dish of fish in a delicious sauce, mushrooms and broccoli, he heard a knock on his door, and then it quickly opened. A nurse walked in with a pretty smile, upon seeing the food, the lady rolled her eyes but approached him to make small talk she was obviously not counting on him to answer, and she was not making any questions, just talked about the weather and whatever nonsense she could spew out.

Two minutes into her cleaning everything with her wand, changing the curtains, opening them up to reveal the (Aha!) dusk and setting sun, she turned to him while he finished his dish and drank his water to do a post-slumber checkup.

She moved her wand in a couple of motions foreign to Harry, and looked uninterested when she saw the results were abnormally normal. The nurse almost sighed in exasperation as to why she needed to check something that remained unchangeable hour by hour.

So then she got unpractical (as she liked to call it, since Healer Malfoy was simply stubborn about his methods), briefly explaining Harry as she made some rubber glove appear on her hands, that she was going to run a physical check too, since Harry's Healer had insisted on it.

Saying a curt "If you may," she pushed Harry's tray away and approached him with muggle clinical tools, surprising even Harry when they appeared in the tray replacing his now empty plates. The nurse started checking his eyes, sighed, his ears, sighed then his nose, sigh.

She took another tool and told him to open his mouth and stick his tongue out. He absentmindedly did, while looking away from her to avoid any more misery, but he did not feel any tool on his tongue or anything poking at his mouth.

"Merlin's grace! Oh, my!" gasped the nurse, taking a step away from Harry.

Hearing this was obviously no good, the look on the nurse face was not shock, or disgust… it was just puzzlement. Harry matched his expression to hers, adding a little questioning to his brow positioning.

The nurse made the tools disappeared and then with a quick, "I'll bring the Healer" she disappeared too.

-.-.-

It felt like an hour waiting, and maybe it was. Harry stuck to doodle on his messenger notebook while waiting, mostly snitches and bad guys… he wasn't an artist anyways.

Then the door opened and tall figured followed suit, Malfoy filled the room with his bright hair and professional stroke.

"Okay. So, according to the nurse, your tongue is not 'normal' either, now," Malfoy said without even mustering any salutations first. "I hope you had a good rest though, it seems we will be doing some excruciatingly long tests tonight." The blonde took his steps towards Harry, not needing invitation, he took the tool the nurse never got to fit in Harry's mouth and made a hand motion for Harry to open up.

He did, and the instrument, yet again, never touched his mouth.

"Bloody hell," was Malfoy's reaction. Harry snorted. "This is new," appreciated the Healer and put a hand on his chin, looking intently to Harry's tongue.

Tired of being kept in the shadows, the wounded just raised his hand and was to touch his tongue and discover for himself why the shitload of exalting reactions, but then Malfoy procured a mirror and put it in front of him.

"Since you're curious enough, I advise you, this might be shocking." The mirror was almost to his face, so he just grabbed it and stuck his tongue out.

His eyes were big after the image and he understood why the puzzled looks now. Grabbing his notebook, he scribbled fast: 'What the hell?' on it and pushed the message to Malfoy.

With a sigh and that condescending look that was getting on Harry's nerves by now, the other said, "I know as much as you do, that's why I said we will be up for some time tonight doing those tests. I'm not even asking out because I know you're up for it as much as I am now," he finished with a determined tone of voice.

"_What other option do I have?_" Harry said in a rush impetus of just talking, and winced after he remembered he was not really talking but _hissing_…

Maybe it was the misery on his stance, but, after a heartbeat, Malfoy approached him and put a hand lightly on his shoulder while saying, "It's Okay, Potter. You might be the one with the most astonishing set of characteristics, but not the only one who ever received this curse. Even if that is not so, I am the one to break it and make you, _you_ again, All right?" He tipped his head to the side as if searching the assurance from Harry instead of it being the other way around.

Misery and all, he just nodded and straightened himself a little. "So, when do we begin testing?" wrote Harry.

"Oh! Not when, _where_," said Malfoy with the obnoxious smirk, caste of his family.

-.-.-

For the following hours, Malfoy had subjected Harry to a series of tests and spells that left the dark-haired one worn out by the time he settled back in his hospital bed.

Malfoy was scribbling furiously on a notebook while declaring the final words of Harry's tests to him, before letting him sleep, "This should give me enough information to get something rounded up for tomorrow... if not. However, I am sorry to tell you I will not let you rest for long. This curse is developing more than just parseltongue on you, and now giving you a real snake tongue, that is just morbid. Whoever threw or even invented this kind of curse, either love snakes or is touched in the head. Anyway, Good night, I will try to bring you some good news tomorrow, Potter," was his final word before approaching the door.

_"__I guess. Good night, Malfoy,_" mumbled Harry groggily. Comfortably set on the bed and already blinking away to slumber. Little he noticed how he just _said_ that, before he was already blacking out.

But Draco did noticed, and for the umpteenth time that night, a quick shiver ran his spine at catching the sinuous hissing and subtle waves of what seemed to be words weaved between them. The damn sexiness of it.

Wait.

What?

Malfoy paused for a second, watching Potter sleeping away, deeper and deeper. Watching his chest rise and fall, the contended smoothness of his brow, he sign of no more nightmares haunting the man.

He shook his head twice, quickly, and exited the room, apparating away to his office. Once there, he set the papers down and so, a sigh.

What was happening to him? He wondered. While Potter was madly attractive, yes, that was not a matter for shivering like a damsel. Though, he only had that response while hearing him speak the dead language. But was it the language or the spokesperson?

His fingers tapped the desk lightly while he thought on it... Which was it? He was not attracted to his former rival, even when that was not a half-bad idea to indulge. The other had grown well; Auror training and all that, had made Potter quite dosed with a set of muscles to make anyone envious. He knew from the profiler that took all of Potters information, that he also kept being physically active. Quidditch, muggle martial arts, some other nonsense, yeah, whatever.

Malfoy sighed. What was really causing that reaction on his body upon hearing parseltongue? It had to be the language. He had heard Potter speaking it before, at Hogwarts on DADA class, a long time ago. But, if he remembered correctly, he also experienced some reaction that time.

...Although that time he replaced the sensation meaning, with that of excitement on battle, with a worthy opponent.

Excitement?

Was that the word again? Just excitement? It was a rare language, one invented by a wizard, nonetheless... But was really, _really_ it?

Draco loosened his tie up a bit, sighed again and looked up to the ceiling of his office. Whatever this sentiment was, it would have to wait until he cured the cursed man.

He rubbed his face and decided to leave it at that and go home for this night at least.

_Later_, he thought while turning his lights off. _Later_, he would name the feeling.


	3. Drastic Measures

By the first week of Harry's hospital stay, things got sufficiently weird already. And it was getting very routinely by now, how symptoms would appear, shock the hell out of everyone, make everyone worry, and then... like the most normal thing ever, the symptoms would disappear from Harry's body, not leaving any aftermath, or any other symptom to the curse. The only thing that never changed was the parseltongue.

It was already the fifth week of Harry's hospital stay, and by then, not only his tongue changed to a forked one –on the first week– but his eyes changed to slithers –second week–, then his skin would shed like a snake's would –fourth week–, all at the same time, and unnecessarily itchy. But other than the strangeness and uncomfortableness, nothing life threatening happened to him.

Draco was on his nerves. A little annoyed by how the symptoms will show for a couple days and then would disappear gradually on the other couple of days.

The first tests on Harry's tongue incident had shown nothing, NOTHING at all, for him to work with. And the apparition of the other "incidents" as he liked to call the symptoms, would just leave him even more put out.

He was working hard, and everyone was noticing. Sometimes when Harry was having an incident, you could see the dark circles beneath Draco's eyes, and when the symptom was gone, you could see him roaming the hospital library more than ever.

He was a man committed to his patient.

Harry, on the other hand, had learned to moderate his speaking outburst. Since the second incident apparition, he tried speaking, but he still got the parseltongue going, so now more than before he was almost mute.

Except for quite a little detail. So he would not lose the feeling of English, Draco told him to read out loud, before going to sleep, at least a couple of lines or a page of a book. Harry did so. When left alone and in the silent moments of the night, he took a book he liked and started reading, and occasionally he would read aloud, trying to intonate the voice of the readers and whatnot.

It was quite calming, Harry thought, because he could hear himself reading in English in his mind, but when speaking out loud, he was still speaking English, but more hissy.

This little detail was for Harry a scape, but for Draco it was an exercise. He stopped by Harry's room often at night when he knew the other would be reading, and listened to the parseltongue through the door. He thought with this he would either control the shivers or identify the sentiment.

But the shiver never left. And the sentiment was becoming something dangerous.

The blonde brushed it past him, and kept his professional demeanor every time he could, around Harry or not.

-.-.-

By the end of the fifth week and once Harry's ears had reappeared (as they shrunk into slits) Draco has a couple ideas of what was happening, and was eager to show them to the brunet.

"So, Good morning. I know you feel okay, the nurse has told me, I'm glad. Let's get to business," intoned Malfoy as he moved into the room with grace and a stoic expression on his face, wand in hand, already.

The business-likeness and emotionless addressing had Harry a little dumbfounded but he went with it, nodding and making a motion with his hand for Draco to proceed.

"Ok. Yeah, I have developed a series of tests that will allow me to know more about the curse. But," the blonde stopped briefly always looking Harry in the eye, his wand hand twitching a little. "You might not like it," he deadpanned at last, but suggested an affirmation.

The expression of utter puzzlement on Harry's face was almost making Draco smile, but he kept the stoic façade and went on when the other nodded.

He launched on full explanation mode, "The test will summit you to a magic slumber, similar to a sleeping draught but you can wakeup whenever you choose to. The point of that is allowing me, to perform a series of spells on your magical core, and see where the curse is located and how is doing what it is doing. I need you asleep to access successfully your conscious and unconscious magical current." He explained as best as he could with a patient tone and still with his eyes fixed on Harrys.

The convalescent just raised an eyebrow as to say 'Is that all?' and surprisingly, Draco was used to Harry's expressions so much by now that before the other got his notebook, he answered.

"Here comes the part you won't like," the fair-haired continued, "I will require you to stay asleep no matter what, and your full consent and permission for this procedure. Because I need to access parts of you nobody had and will ever access if you are careful enough not to get another curse like this; all the other maladies you might suffer, hope you not, can be cure with superficial spells, but here we are talking of something soul and magical bound. If I am to get that far into your magical currents, we might experience some kind of secondary connection as your and my core will be in direct touch; In other words, we may share more than just impulses of magic. We might share locked down memories and unconscious experiences."

Malfoy made a pause to summon some of his research papers for Harry to review while he was talking. Harry was not a Mediwizard but had proven to have such creativity and understand detailed medical knowledge (maybe courtesy of his Auror training) it made Draco's explaining and testing a lot easier, so the Healer got no problem showing him his research, and also, he needed Potter to see that he was sure of what he was talking about. That Draco had solid base to want to get into Harry in such an intimate –yet intrusive– way.

"If my assumption is correct," he proceeded, "this curse is trying to bound with you and make you… part snake or something, from your magical core. None of the symptoms that had appeared matched your core, except for the parseltongue which was a trait you already had in you before the curse." He breathed deeply and went on, "So I guess the spell is showing these incidents as to surface snake-like qualities that might converge with the parseltongue you were already able to do in the first place, then, once the common trigger is set on your outside, the inside can shift as well. I'm afraid we've been losing time on that," Malfoy stated gravely.

Getting another position on the chair he was occupying, and rubbing his hands softly on the rims of his Healer robes, Malfoy kept his grey eyes on green eyes.

Harry could feel he was hesitating to continue, so he leaned his head to the side softly, he knew Malfoy was keeping track of his expressions, even if the other did not recognized it for him.

"Oh, um," Malfoy murmured when he saw Harry's head leaned and staring back, so clearing his throat discreetly, he declared the last part of his speech, "I made a list, of, Snake attributes that we could check to try to predict some of your incidents. I even made a recognition potion, and applied to the biopsied parts we got from you when the incidents showed, but none got snake cellules, they were all human tissue, yet. So the curse is giving you these attributes, they are performing like a snake but on a human." Pause.

"My theory," he went on after an exhalation, "is that until the curse gets to the attribute that matches the parseltongue magical frequency on your body, it will just show snake-like parts of you, but they will go away. You have been showing a symptom every week, five symptoms by now. The average snake has roughly seven to ten attributes that distinguish them apart from other reptiles, depending on its species. By the way your symptoms had shown, I pinpointed the curse is trying to get you to look like four possible types of snakes." Malfoy shifted on his seat. "Since I'm really bad at muggle biology, I don't want to wait until more incidents show and we can get a detailed look of how large your terrarium needs to be."

He gained a hard look from Harry at the remark, but continued, "So we need to do these tests, as intrusive they might seem, they'll shed the light I need to cure you. You need to let me in." Draco hesitated before finishing, but continued anyway, "I know this might sound like a horrible idea in your books. You have to trust me at least for the hour or so I will be inside you," he said, and regretted it the minute that escaped his lips.

Harry laughed at that, hard and with mirth. At least his laugh sounded normal and not hissy.

Malfoy was looking anywhere but to Harry at this point, with a hand on his nape.

"You know what I meant, the tests," he whispered trying hard to amend his awkward mistake; he shut it when he felt a hand on his own, Harrys. He looked up and the other was just smiling at him and looking him like he looked his other visitors, with ease.

"Does that mean a yes, or what? I need your written permission, this is not going to be an oral affair." Again, he pursed his lips as that other thing escaped them. _Dammit,_ he thought closing his eyes to control his expression to the stoic one he had to begin with.

Harry took his notebook, chuckling, and scribbled away, 'Ok, Mr. Awkwardman. I trust you being inside my magical core and finding out what is wrong with me. When do we do it?'

The brunet showed the message to the Healer, and waited until his eyes reached the end of the message to wiggle sumptuously his eyebrows to tease the older even more. He just got an eye-roll at that.

Draco stood up and reached for his research papers now resting on Harry's lap, "We will do them tomorrow once I align my core to yours. Surprisingly," he pondered, "Our magical frequency is not that different. It's even a little scary how similar our signatures are, so I'll make minimal preparations, you can rest for today and talk about this to your family and see if they have the same level of confidence about you on the matter."

Harry made a motion with his hand, then before Draco could protest or go, he scribbled rapidly 'I already gave my go, they will agree too,' and smiled briefly seeing Malfoy shrugging.

"Whatever you say then, rest well and see you tomorrow Harry."

With that, the blonde just left Harry to its bearings, but not for long, as he noticed how on the corridor to his left some red heads started to appear and get nearer and nearer the corridor he was about to leave.

_Tomorrow_, he thought. _Tomorrow will prove to be an interesting day_.

-.-.-

"He wants to do what?!" was Ginny's exclamation at hearing –reading, rather– the news of Malfoy's idea. "No way you'll let him, would you?"

"Gin, you need to be thoughtful. Harry is on a difficult and rare situation, yet again. Malfoy seems like an expert on this field. If he needs to do this to cure Harry, I say it is okay." Mrs. Weasley was always the voice of reason. Molly was visiting him this time, as it was Arthur's turn to look after Rose.

"He showed me his research too. As Harry said, it is very detailed and specific on what Malfoy will look for in Harry once the connection is established; even the pros, cons, and second effects are detailed. It seems a very solid argument and legitimate test to let him know more. I'm okay with it if Harry said he is," Hermione said, speaking on behalf of Ron as he was on an Auror case at the time.

The other female in the room, Luna, was not taking any sides or stating any opinion. She was just looking contempt at seeing Harry was okay, rubbing her five months' baby bump.

Ginny, on a corner she could not be backed up, just showed an uneasy expression of disgruntlement. She crossed her hands, looked up and sighed, as to not give into agreeing, but not denying the points the others lead.

"Fine. Whatever," was her final reprisal. She did not look into Harry's eyes again for the remaining of the visit.

Harry understood her. He was agreeing to a big bargain with this, letting someone get to him even in a deeper way than how legilimency worked.

In the past weeks, being treated by Malfoy, it made him see the Draco at work far from the Draco at school or at war, he remembered. It was a real nice contrast. Sometimes, when talking –writing– about how he felt when an incident happened, as Draco had required him to do every week, he would get glimpses of the normal Draco.

Not the Healer Malfoy, that treated patients with a stoic expression like todays, or the Malfoy who was Head of the Potions and Poisoning Ward. Harry had to talk to the other as the man under the lime green robes, the normal Draco. That experience was a key to his agreement. He noticed how much Draco had changed in the past eight years.

Even when he did not know a thing about the _real_ Draco underneath all those layers of professionalism, and maybe the way Draco talked to him when they were making tests on his incidents was part of it, something made him believe Draco was being sincere and very straightforward to Harry, as he was with no other patient.

On the other hand, maybe that was what Harry needed to think to get past this predicament with all his sanity, as he had seen his body change in ways it was not supposed to. Thank Merlin the incidents had been harmless so far, because he did not know what would be of his mind if they were to come with repercussions other than physical changes.

He brushed the thought aside and sighed. Honestly –he thought after a minute, trying to be sincere with himself– he needed the assurance that Draco was being human and decent and caring with him, because with every passing week, he felt as if he was losing his humanity along with his speech.

In another impatient rush, and now alone in his room again, Harry tried talking. He grabbed his book and read, and read aloud. Even when he was hearing English, he could distinguish the hiss even more now.

It was not working.

He rested his head back on the bed's headboard and his hands fell limp on his lap with the book flailing to a side. He sighed again and sob escaped him, surprised him. And he let go.

_Until tomorrow _–was his thought– _Let me be weak, until tomorrow. _


	4. Inner Body Magics

**Upon reading a review suggesting a correct dialog form, I changed how the dialog is read in this chapter, and eventually all the other ones too. Please continue to enjoy my story and let me know what you think on the reviews!**

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_He rested his head back on the bed's headboard and his hands fell limp on his lap with the book tumbling to a side. He sighed again and a sob escaped him, surprised him. And he let go. _

_"__Until tomorrow" he thought. _

_"__Let me be weak, until tomorrow…"_

On the other side of the hospital's door, there was a hand resting on the doorknob. Just there.

The bearer's head was down, eyes closed hard and its other hand pressed to the chest.

Why was it so touching hearing this? He had heard countless patients cry with family members or cry while on treatment, or just cry _because_… But Harry was different. Harry was crying out of frustration. And it meant the man was really distressed at his predicament. Even if he didn't show it in the first weeks, he was by now, letting it show and letting it get to him more and more. Signs of a man who dealt with struggles like this on a daily basis. Learning to allow himself a moment of weakness so he could put on a strong façade for the others to see, for Draco to know he was willing to go on and on with treatments as long as he's cured… what more was there of Harry Potter that he had missed out?

Draco cleared his throat mutely, loosening the nod that formed on the last seconds of thinking. Left the doorknob alone and went back to his office to double check everything for tomorrow's test on the brunet.

He better got everything he needed to know tomorrow, because if his will of curing patients haven't yet resolve him to cure Harry no matter the cost, that sob did the job.

-.-.-

The dawn cracked in the distance, quickly illuminating the surface, waking the early birds of the world.

Except for a soul who did not sleep at all that night. Say specifically Harry Potter, who tried to rest all he could to end up doodling nonsense on his notepad, which was at this point going to need to be replaced.

So when he saw the sun on the rims of his window, he sighed. Leaving the doodles aside, he put his head on the pillow one more time, charming the curtains black so the light won't leak in.

But by the time he was gaining a little sleep, a nurse came in like clockwork at 7am to check on him, quietly.

He stayed limp and close-eyed on the bed, but heard her soft footsteps and shifting of things in the room. She did not turn the curtains back to white, respecting Harry's decision of no light in the room.

When she left, Harry was awake again but decided to let his body rest at least, by not moving at all, even when his mind seemed to be on a race.

By the time lunchtime came around, he had just slept for two brief hours, and was surprised to see Malfoy himself bringing the tray with food. Not hospital food as it was custom already.

"Mrs Weasley says hi, delightful lady by the way. I thought she was going to skin me when she saw me, but it turned out to be a good surprise seeing her smile to me". Said Malfoy as he made his way over the room, letting the tray float to Harry as he made some movements around the room, presumably final arrangements.

Harry was a little putout since he did not expect to be so well rested just with two hours of sleep, or maybe it was upon seeing Malfoy that his body felt better. Because of the whole test thing, obviously… Or was it the food?

Any way, he got the floating tray and started to eat anxiously at everything served. Not even bothering to write a comment on what the blond said, just nodding to him when he felt the other's eyes on him.

Once the food was downed, Harry left out a soft sigh and rested his head back. His exterior seemed calm, but his heart was racing with anticipation. Draco hadn't left the room, silently reading through some old parchments and some notebooks while he ate, and now he was just jotting down something nonstop.

Harry waited, and the more he waited the little his heart went to a kind of normal pace, but still rapid in comparison, almost like tachycardia.

Finally, Harry thought, Malfoy left the pen with which he was scribbling, and raised his sight to him. He smiled, briefly, subtly.

"Shall we begin?"

Was his only phrase. Harry snorted. He needn't English to do that.

The other approached the bed and took seat beside Harry. Intently staring at him, he started a tirade of explaining how the test was going to work, and that Harry needed to let out everything, and just lay still for at least five minutes before Draco could even attempt entering his magical current.

"Good thing is that right now we are almost in perfect magical sync, the rest will let you kick me out if you feel the need to, but I strongly recommend not doing that unless you are very stressed out once I'm in. We will set a safe-word you can think of on your mind for when I'm traveling the current, and before you ask it, yes, I will be able to hear what you think. If even your thoughts are in parseltongue, then we will be damned". Surprisingly, he smiled at that too.

If he was trying to transmit any kind of peace to Harry by doing that, he was failing. So the green eyed man just arched an eyebrow at him for that.

"Anyway, the safe-word will be "Pigmy puff". I went ahead and took the liberty to made it as ridiculously adorable as possible because distress tends to make you think less of adorable things actually… So we'll use that one, no changes can be done. Now, lie down, let us begin" was Malfoy's last, flat-toned serious statement.

He got comfortable and flat on the bed, while he saw Malfoy positioning himself on his side, the parchments he brought with him already forgotten on the table by the side on the bed.

Malfoy took his wand, and with a brief nod, told Harry to look at him in the eyes, and then he said, "I will be entering now" as the only preparation to what was coming. Draco's wand did a circled motion over Harry's chest area, and then a sharp flick down his middle section and lower body. Harry did not took his eyes apart from Draco's on the whole process, trying to control the slight shivering that wanted to shake his body, he contained and kept calm.

Malfoy started chanting under his breath, and Harry was entranced as he saw the fair-haired man work. He was absolutely concentrated, his hands steady as he moved his wand over Harry's body, eyes locked on his, chanting with a good voice rhythm for that kind of complicated charm.

It did not last much before Harry felt the intrusion. His breath caught and hitched when he felt Malfoy's magic connecting. If he had to explain the feeling, it would have been like feeling a curse that made his body whole and at the same time void.

He felt as if his magic was inside, outside, surrounding him, concentrated and volatile all at the same time.

He felt like ice burning his insides, but also a cool breeze elevating him and filling him with vertigo.

It was the weirdest feeling ever, until their minds connected too. And then, he was seeing his own memories combined with Malfoy's, like living with the Dursley's in a huge marble decorated manor. Or learning to fly a broom with a fat Lucius.

The first couple of memories were funny and the combinations made them hilarious, but then he saw a blond boy locked in a cupboard and he somehow realized he had not been the only one suffering that fate. He saw a boy being berated by some older boys, while the blond boy watched, hiding.

Then one by one, the memories where taking their own shape, separated from each other, and fading to the back of the enchantment.

That's when Harry saw –felt– him. Draco, among all the chaos of sensations, memories and magic. There he was standing with a normal button down and gray slacks, hand on his pockets, hair falling to the sides of his face, one side a little longer than the other, eyes brilliant, full of the light that was hauntingly not surrounding any of them.

There was Draco, so glorious, and handsome –harry had to swallow as he thought this– but it was a nice sight. Malfoy smirked a little.

"Is good to know you see me like this, and not like some hideous creature." He combed his hair with his fingers, "Oh, and I love the hair style, I might do it on me" there was a little wink on his face, that seemed so soft and sultry that harry almost blushed.

Malfoy's voice made him felt all the shivers he was trying to conceal, and let his body tremble uncontrollably. Malfoy chuckled.

Reminiscing upon his own body, thinking that if Draco said, 'you see me like this' he might also appear slightly different in his mind's eye. Like magic, a mirror presented itself in front of him and let him take a look.

He was not half bad, a little bit more tanned than he actually was, since he did not exit his house that much lately. Bulk –that he was– due to the exercise. Also his hair was wavy, not messy, like a more conditioned, magazine version of his normal hair.

He was dressed in a muggle V-neck shirt and fitted jeans. He just noticed how both of them were barefooted. The mirror disappeared.

"Well, now that you are comfortable with my intrusion and the way your inner mind see us, I will need to go over there," he pointed a particularly black section among all the blackness surrounding them "And see what is wrong with you".

Harry seemed a little hesitant, but then he mustered courage and whispered, "Can you… Hear me?"

"Oh! Yes, in English nonetheless, that is magnificent" was Draco's cheerful admission, his smile brilliant as the pearly shine of the moon. "That means I won't have to look that hard at the curse, since it's not affecting you beyond your outer speech pattern."

Harry sighed deeply at that. A weight off his shoulders at least "Thanks merlin," he whispered. "So you are going to... leave me here and go about finding the curse?" he asked tentatively.

"That is the plan, yes. Unless you think otherwise? I mean, It might be faster if you come, since you might be able to recognize your magic currents faster than me and pin-point me in the right direction. It'll take me less time and it'll be less solitary if you come."

"So you needed me all along but you were going to go by yourself?" was his reproachful remark.

"I didn't mean to make it sound like that. I need you to come with me since we are traveling and intruding your body, but it is not mandatory. If by chance your inner mind did not want to go with me, then I would have just gone alone," Malfoy explained evenly, in that same compound tone he used to chant.

"But you knew I would accompany you, didn't you?" Harry had to close his eyes a little suspiciously at that thought.

"I had my hopes up, to tell you the truth… Do you remember the safe word?" asked the blonde in a way that dismissed the first argument.

"Yes, pig –"

"Do not say it! Save it for the occasion. Now, please follow me. I don't want to intrude your mind and magic core more than its necessary." Malfoy started to stir to the side, facing that indescribable blackness to his left, and waited until Harry was approaching him, to extend his hand towards Harry, without seeing him, and then stepping into the dark.

As soon as Harry took Draco's hand and followed him into the dimness, his body felt squished and as if he was evaporating.

He could hear Draco's voice calling him on, "Show me the way to the currents on your hand, we will go to where this curse started."

And so he did.


	5. Into The Den

**Lots of apologies for the lack of updates. I have uploaded two chapters at once to make up for the lack there of. Further chapters are on the works, and I estimate another three or four chapters for this story.**

**Also, something I've been considering while thinking on the story's ending, is that it would be nice to write a side-fic, or actually a sequel in the form of another long story after the events of this one. Please let me know how you think the development at the end would be and if you would like a conclusive ending, an open ending and/OR a sequel for the story. Many many thanks for reading this far! **

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They landed on another black space. Or what Harry could describe for. Malfoy was eyeing everything around him intently as if he was in a history museum. He stood patiently until the other noticed he was just standing.

"Well? Are you not content with how your magic looks? Personally I find it fascinating, I was expecting brilliant golden streams and crystal figures, like my father's, but yeah, I guess that's for a pretentious person now that I dwell on it."

Despite the collected demeanor of the blonde outside of this 'inner-body' experience, he was very rambunctious here on the 'magic currents'. Malfoy was smiling contently seeing him full in the eye, when he suddenly clouded, smile fading.

"You can see it, right? Your magical flow, the… the streams running around us?" he asked as he waved his right hand around in what seemed like interpretative dance motions.

Harry shook his head a little "Everything but you is black for me," he admitted.

Draco paled even further than his normal pallor. "This… is an opportunity," he whispered, looking troubled, like it was a problem more than an opportunity, Harry thought, and saw Draco frown and look at him in a condescending way.

"I can hear that," was his answer, Harry blushed. "But you are not wrong, I just didn't want to put it that way, my mind reflects in this face what I am really feeling that is why I can't have a collected face when I am worried, like in the outside," he explained patiently, pointing at his 'face'.

Draco paced a little around the 'room' filled with Harry's hand magical current and then turned to him. "I'll survey this area and then we will move to your inner mind, and fix that."

"Fix what?" he asked because it was the obvious.

"Well, your inner sight of course. Most people would see what I am seeing, but you, for Salazar's will, you time and time again escape whatever is normal and possible and credible in this and every life. I cannot imagine what would be like living with you on a daily basis. Oh wait–" he said, letting that hang, Harry thought he referred to their days at Hogwarts.

He snorted. "That was then. My life now is dull beyond measure. You'd be surprised."

"I doubt it, that you are under my care is all the evidence you need."

Harry shook his head non-descriptively, thinking he still disagreed with Draco but saved it for 'himself' despite Draco being able to hear it. Malfoy decided to keep looking and concentrating on the present task instead.

After a full while of who knows how much time, of Draco pacing the overall area that seemed like a medium sized theatre scenario, Harry just sitting there cross-legged staring at him. He was a little restless since he couldn't think freely. The intrusion was kind of starting to get to his nerves, more because Draco was just pacing and not sharing whatever he was seeing. Sometimes he would smile, sometimes he would frown, the other time he would just be poker facing something intently.

Draco did turn to him once or twice. Maybe to check on him, to make sure he was still there, or for who knows what. Harry didn't know anymore.

It took a whole more of that undescriptive time for Draco to turn and walk to him, and kneel in front of him, suddenly, he stared at him a little. "Stop that."

"What?" Harry snapped without thinking on it, then reflected on his tone "Sorry. What?" he said gently this time.

"That. You are brooding, it's tensing your magic," he pointed at his arm, and the sides of his arm actually, which were kind of shimmering and blurring, "your body is starting to pick on that and pushing me out."

"What? I, I don't want to kick you out," _I just want to know what is happening, _he thought and then groaned when he realized it was futile.

Draco just laughed out loud and sat down. He kept smiling and watching Harry with a light-heartiness that extended to him, and he eased. Draco's profile stared to solidify a little. "You are cute. Well I could share, but if you saw, it would be infinitely better… Hell, I could even use your help on this," he said passing a hand through his hair, sweeping it back, but it fell to the side again resting behind the ear. Harry blushed at all the information and stood up hurriedly, backing away from the blond.

"Can't we just fix this inner eye thing first, and, and then I can give you a hand?"

"Excellent idea! You took the thought out of me." The other smiled from his position.

"Well, aren't we going there, then?" Harry was eyeing him strangely, since the content smile was turning more like a sheepish smile on the older.

"Oh, yes. Sorry, the sight was good," was his only reply, nonchalantly and irreproachable.

Harry blushed again, feeling Malfoy stand up and reach him. A hand slipped on his and he resisted the yelp overcoming him. He willed himself to his mind, or the equivalent of thinking he wanted to go wherever the magic current of his mind was.

It took a little more than the first time since now he was somewhat distressed, but he got control on it and moved onward. As soon as they got there, both knew there was something wrong.

There was a pressure and a chill in the blackness this time. Harry turned to Draco, but he was not there anymore. No… that was wrong, Harry could feel his hand still there. He gripped it tighter, pulled a little on it, maybe to move the 'body' nearer him and see it, but he couldn't see it. Moreover… He couldn't _hear_ Draco anymore.

He tried calling him, but he couldn't even hear his voice. Everything was mute. Everything was dark.

"What the hell is happening!" he wanted to shout. He thought he did, the hand was still there. He hanged on to that for dear conscience.

-.-.-

Draco knew there was something wrong as soon as the enchantment was in place and he was inside Harry's body and magic. Now that they arrived at Harry's mind, he was certain what was wrong.

He felt himself sadden by the second, all the rush of emotions hanging. The feeling was unbearable. He tried to calm Harry, but Harry was not next to him.

_Conscience displacement_, he thought. It was common on abused patience to do that while on the same physical room with a Mediwizard, but for someone to do it inside his own mind? It was something even trickier. Even when Draco could feel Harry's presence around him, here on his mind, he was not 'mentally' next to him.

"He must be in a lot of pain from something else than the curse. But to have this dimension of mental closeness, someone will think the boy-who-lived let all resentment and sorrow behind."

Someone will think wrong then, thought the blonde.

He took a breath and started surveying the mind. This was not unsolvable. Difficult yes, but not unsolvable. He was not a Mind-healer, but he was committed to healing every patient he was assigned to.

Faster than he bargained for, Draco found a distress in Harry's mind. "Okay, here goes nothing," he thought approaching it carefully. After a blink or two he was inside a… cluster of memories instead of a single remembrance.

He tried to look around, but all the images were flashing rapidly across from him, like being on a movie theatre and having all the walls as projected movies, all of them at full sound, in the middle of the plot, action movies, drama, thriller… All of it.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on one memory. Stepping forward was not an option, as any movement would trigger Harry's alertness. He would have to do this the old and rookie's way… part pleading, part legilimency.

That was his plan all right, but as soon as he got his mind on the incantation, something blocked him. Harry's voice, powerful and resounding above all the mayhem of the memories, was calling him.

"Harry can you hear me?!" he tried to the air, hoping to be heard or acknowledged.

But there was no answer. So he tried the incantation again, ignoring Harry's voice plea and the memories flashing on all directions, he thought on the most saddened memory of the compound… And it came to him with a bang.

-.-.-

_It was a particularly cold day, Harry noticed. His thumbs were a little numb from being out of his pockets in what he expected to be a carefree way of standing in the middle of a lonely road, three days before Christmas. What little people passed by were all accompanied by someone, couples, parents… someone._

_And there he was, leaning to that wall like the most natural thing to do. Inside he was worried, his mind racing in thirty possible directions and what-if's. She was not coming. _

_He looked to every corner one more time for the tenth time, checked his watch another hundredth time. Sighed. She was not coming. _

_With that thought, he decided to unstick himself from the wall and walk the short way home. No point in endangering himself more to the idea of hypothermia. He could wait for her a lifetime, but he gave her three hours today. After he would have waited there for six… maybe seven, until a message came, an owl or a patronus were the occasional lately. 'I am sorry, something came up' but she never mentioned what. 'I may not be able to show up today' but why? He wanted to ask, but never did._

_'__Sorry' was the last one, rushed message she had sent. What was she hurrying to? Not to meet him certainly. _

_She grew apart from him. _

_So the short way home it was, and as he walked he decided he was not going to wait more than five minutes the next time. Next time he would not even be the one inviting. He thought he ought to be the one invited for once. _

_After that day, he never was. _

Draco took a breath and chose another memory.

-.-.-

_He wanted to destroy his apartment. Trash it beyond repair… Beyond _magical_ repair. He was_ furious.

_The green-eyed beast pacing up and down his living room was not Harry; it was a chimera with Harry's body, or something dangerous in comparison. _

_He had let them fool him. Played him like a yo-yo the whole time. Obviously, he would cheat. Obviously, Harry was just the perch for his famed-framed suit. Obviously, he didn't foresee that, all the way into agreeing to date him. He was such a moron. A complete disaster, now that everything was going to be over... Oh, how he have let him get into his life. How much he thought this _one_ damn guy was going to be any different. _

_Life came and kicked him in the balls again. Hard. _

_His apartment door opened and there it was. The only face he wanted to see the most and the only face he wanted to punch the most. _

_'__You are a liar.' he didn't thought of saying that first. Though, now that it was out, 'Get out of my face. Get out of my life, and right now, get out of my fucking apartment'. _

_'__Hon- let me explain… It may seem unreasonable but I did it w-' _

_'__I DON'T CARE, LUKE!' he didn't intend on shouting either. However, he controlled himself, because nothing good ever came after a shouting match, and arguments are better assessed with calmness instead of frustration. 'I don't care… Of your motives, your drive, or the outcome… present or future, I want you out of everything I am involved. Go away. Go on a trip, I'll pay for it. Just go.' _

_The door closed a full minute after that. No more words then, just silence. He could hear the steps leaving the vicinity… and with that, his life. _

-.-.-

The next memory came with another bang to the blonde, like someone cracking a firework right next to your ear while you sleep.

_A loud bang sounded on the corner, Harry was running with all his strength to that point, sweaty, tired, frightened. The day was not over yet, the day… _

_He approached the corner and saw the body lying there. He scoffed and willed a sob not to escape him. Always the collected one, he must be. _

_But this was hard… His partner, she, she was dead. Another death to deal with, another funeral, another apology… One more of his incompetencies._

_Harry knelt beside the body and started surveying her, with a tight not on his throat and a blurry in his mind. His partner, his dear partner._

The face was a blur on Harry's mind, so it was hard for Draco to place her by the physic, maybe a shielding mechanism for Harry not to remember her, or maybe the sorrow had erased her face… maybe it was locked away in the other's subconscious, where it was tormenting him on dreams without him ever knowing. Draco sighed.

There were more memories from where those came from, a lot actually, overlapping the good ones, there was no sorting them out in the four-walled theater of memories, there were so many.

The Healer didn't know where or how to being assessing the problem… _I think he could really use a mind healer right now_, he thought, but then shook his head, pressing his temple with the base of one and. _There's no time._

There was no time for Draco to get out of Harry's body without pinpointing the curse first, because once he was out of Harry's body it would be months before he could perform this spell again on him and by then… by then it most probably would be late.

There was no time.

"Harry you need to help me," he pleaded, with his heart and magic this time. He closed his eyes, thinking on that frozen Harry with purple thumbs waiting for three hours out in the cold for god-knows whom. The vivid Harry commanding Luke out of his life. The broken Harry seeing his dead partner, realizing he failed again, when he had promised himself not to, every morning, all the days of his life until now.

"How do you know that…?" said an airy version of Harry's voice. "How do you know I've done it this whole time?"

"I heard you…" was his only answer; he did not want to elaborate.

"What?" but Harry seemed to disagree with him.

So he continued. "I heard what you said yesterday night. About letting yourself being weak for this little moment. And I understand why. I admire you for it, I wanted to rid you from this curse when I first saw you arriving unconscious. I wanted to rid you this morning before coming inside you, but now… Now I could really just embrace you for the rest of your life and I would be okay with that if that makes you better, and lets you forget all this things…"

"Hell, Harry, I could really use seeing you, your mind you, your real you, whatever you want to show me, but I could really use that to know I am helping and not worsening this."

His head was hanging low while he talked, but now he was eyeing all of the memory walls in search for something of Harry; a sight of hair, a flick of a hand, the shine of an eye.

He saw it. The shine.

The memories started to fade until a couple more memories stayed in front of the older. He exhaled seeing them, his body/mind/magic shuddered, with a mixture of embarrassment and delight and trepidation.

He saw himself, grey eyes firm and sharp. Slick hair, collected posture.

He saw himself crying on a bathroom, vulnerable.

He saw himself smiling, really smiling on a street corner while watching some muggle street performer, contended, untroubled.

He saw himself from Harry's eyes, while he walked past, turning because he thought he saw something familiar. Someone familiar on the next sidewalk. Seeing him intently until he focused on a face and then on the person, and then realizing it was Malfoy. Curiosity, uneasiness, then realization, and then just recognition. Appreciation. Seeing himself with new eyes, non-judgmental eyes.

Person to person eyes.

Now Draco was blushing, while the memories shifted, and turned, showing more and more of him, he felt invaded, opened up, surveyed. But then he felt taunted.

Harry had dreamt of him. Some mild dreams including punches and arguments. Some soft dreams including tender talks and complacent smiles.

Some heated dreams with skin and sweat and tongues and sheets.

Some shameless dreams with all of the above.

On all of the dreams, despite their content, Draco noted he was mute. Harry did all the talking. Obviously, the dream version of him _tried_ to talk, but the sound never came out and the memories passed by fast for him to try to make something out of everything, so he did not.

But the evidence was there. Harry reached to him with these memories. Harry having thought of him some time before, sometime between complicated, between sadness or indifference.

Harry harboring the foreign idea of being with Draco, then discarding it as soon as he was awake.

The blonde smiled. "Please let me see you," he thought. "You don't have to say anything, I understand," he assured.

…

"I could keep trying to draw you out until your dreams have my voice you know?" he said playfully, moving the hand that felt Harry's presence before, to check if it was still there. It was not.

He didn't had time to worry, as everything turned black again.

And there it was Harry, walking towards him. And where he stepped, the color started returning to the surroundings, and the others eyes moved as if to see the colors, but then remained on Draco's, like he was afraid to let him go again.

"ssaaeh sssiet tess–" Harry stopped short and opened his eyes wider as he realized he was speaking parseltongue, again, inside his mind.

"Yes, it's really me; yes I can understand you for some shitty reason… Come here," he said tenderly, not wanting Harry to realize he couldn't move, moreover, that he didn't trust himself to move as he was, heart pumping, mind reeling. He extended his hand invitingly.

But Harry frowned and didn't move. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it again.

"Yes?" asked Malfoy patiently.

"Ahhat sut thissse–" Harry stopped short again and groaned out of frustration, frowning some more.

Draco stared. "You can't what?" he said, as the other completed his whispery sentence in defeat. "You can't understand yourself? As in you are talking parseltongue and you know what you are trying to say but you hear yourself in parseltongue?"

Harry nodded.

"We can figure it out, it must be the curse for all we know, and thank Merlin I can understand you. For now, I just want you near me, so we can continue healing you," he admitted, smiling, trying his best to mimic that memory where Harry caught him off guard.

Harry got convinced enough to keep moving, apparently, as he stopped frowning and decided to approach Draco.

Just a second away from the other's extended hand, Harry's eyes closed, in a blur of actions he collapsed and the healer rapidly got hold of him and brought him on an embrace. Suddenly, something might have been triggered as everything shifted around them and solidified into a cave with markings around the walls.

Draco shuddered. The sight ominous. They arrived, unwillingly, at the core of the curse.


	6. Tricky Mind Spellworks

**Okay here we go, back in pace with the story! I will be posting chapters every friday until its over... not so far from that now, please keep enjoying the story, reviews are always welcomed!**

* * *

The cave was damp, and smelled like what an underwater cave would smell, of algae, fish and sea salt.

Draco glanced around, the cave was dark and the only light came from the carvings of symbols and runes around the walls, as they radiated a misty, acid green, and shone steadily from ceiling to the bottom of the cave walls.

"Fascinating, the curse was tethered to the mind first and then its symptoms spread to the body through the currents of magic." He appreciated seeing how underneath them, streams of magic, like yarn, ran along the floor under the rock and out of the cave… god knows how since it was a closed round cave, walls and markings everywhere you put your eyes on.

Draco sighed and tried sifting Harry, shaking him gently by the shoulders to wake him.

No go.

After the second harsh try, it was a given that Harry was unconscious –his mind at least. Draco stood gently placing the other's body on the floor and started surveying the runes. Whatever they were, the Healer was certain this was the key to unbinding the curse for good. The question was how.

After a good deal of surveying and taking mental notes, Malfoy got a great deal of the runes sorted out. The symbols, on the other hand, were going to be a problem. He had never seen anything like them, and they all were allusive to serpents and reptiles, so it was easy to make them out from the runes, but very hard to know their significance.

Raido, Isa, Mannaz, and then a serpent coiled. Fehu, Fehu, Algiz, Ehwaz, and then what seemed like a split tongue. The constant mention on consciousness and mental stability.

This was hard.

After a while of reading, he covered the entire cave, had isolated half the messages behind the inscriptions. He constantly checked and shook the other man to see if he was coming back any time soon, but he never stirred.

What seemed like hours were really a couple of minutes, or maybe a couple of minutes have been hours and they had been inside Harry for too long, maybe.

Draco took his chances and made is wand appear. Pointing to the wall, he started to recite along the first couple of runes an incantation that will reveal their true power.

They shimmered, and they twitched green and grey, they stood stuck to the walls, as they were supposed to.

Then Draco heard a whisper. He turned to Harry.

Harry was not there. "The hell?" he breathed, turning again, and then his sight filled with Harry's full face. Green eyes, full lips, wavy hair… Green eyes, acid green.

"Harry what-" he could not finish as the other stared whispering again. No, not whispering, speaking… Parseltongue. But this time he couldn't understand him.

Potter whispered away thing after thing on Draco's ear, making him shiver, maybe not by the breath crashing on his skin, maybe not by the spoken words. Maybe by the sound… that enticing sound.

Malfoy blushed and backed away from him, concentrating with might and looking at the walls for something different. The symbols started to fade. Now there were just runes. The blonde tried again to cast the message out of the runes, to invoke them or to break them.

Harry kept whispering and it was undoing any kind of good will Draco had. This handsome guy, just standing there looking at him full on the eyes, trying to do _something_ that he was sure the curse was making him do, but moreover, chanting away in parseltongue, was something that Draco found disturbingly… Hot.

He would bash his head with a heavy book later for that, but right now, he needed to admit it was. He was bloody attracted to the sound of parseltongue, and maybe it was Harry all together, the way he spoke it. Draco had heard the Dark Lord speaking parseltongue before, but it was nothing as sexy as this. Voldemorts parseltongue was nasty, conceited and commanding. Harry's parseltongue was suggestive, engaging and unpretentious.

He was no expert but at least that is how it sounded. Harry could be cursing him six ways to Sunday or any other day of the week, and he would not care, it sounded so sexy…

He scoffed. No time for wandering on unsheathed desires now.

His wand came up in a flick and he regained his attention, despite the response on his body and the heat the was feeling over the dampness on the cave, he kept chanting the runes away.

With every word of the spell, Harry's whispering turned more and more frantic, he stopped from time to time for a second and then started whispering again. Draco kept his wand steady, mind ready.

At the last bit of spell he approached Harry baby step by baby step, and on the last handful of centimeters he took a sharp step forward and tapped Harrys temple with his last spell.

Harry went limp immediately and fell. Draco was quick to gather him on his arms before he hit the floor, panting, he let his weight fall unceremoniously to the floor and press Potter's mind-body to his. Was it over?

"_Rennervate,_" he whispered softly taping his wand one more time to the others body.

Nothing.

"Oh god… I don't even know how to say wake up in parseltongue."

Malfoy rested his temple on Harry's, trying his best to come up with something. This was the worst part of all, he could leave Harry's mind/magical core, but he did not want to do that before making sure Harry was okay here, on the inside. That had been the plan altogether.

"Please wake up… I need to tell you how I feel," he whispered, eyes closed, reaching for Harry's wand hand. "There is so much you don't know about me I want you to find out," he scoffed again, stifling a smile "I don't even know if those dreams were recent and I am all over you like this… But please wake up, if only so you can make fun of me because of it."

He lost track of the time they spent here. He lost count of the hours, but he had instructed the nurse to check on them every hour, to make sure they were still alive by manually checking for vitals, but not to use any spells or to wake them up for anything, even if St. Mungo was on fire.

He remained there, whispering silly stuff to Harry until something happened. Waiting for anything to happen.

-.-.-

He was floating. Or he was laying down. Or maybe he was dead.

Harry couldn't see, hear, or feel. Everything was dark, everything was damp. There was something pressing his forehead, but he couldn't move his hand to take it away. He wasn't sure he possessed a hand to begging with.

What was he there for? Right, Draco. Where was he? He was supposed to be here with him finding the curse. Here. Where is here?

He stirred, uneasy, but nothing happened. He wanted to move desperately, he wanted to touch something desperately. He wasn't even able to talk. He could make out the thought of opening his mouth, of opening his eyes, but nothing happened, no light leaking through his eyelid, no sounds on the distance, no rumble on his throat.

He was desperate.

Draco, he thought of Draco again. Where was he?!

_DRACO!_ He thought of shouting. Draco wasn't there. Draco couldn't hear him.

_Draco goddamit… _He thought of whispering this time, giving up.

"_–__want you to find out…"_ came a breathy sound from away. Harry shifted –or thought he did. Then kept very still, trying to will the voice again. Draco?

_Draco_… He tried again.

_"–__am all over you like this,"_ there was a long pause. Hours? Or was it just minutes?

_Draco please just come here…_ Harry was retaining every piece of sanity he could on his predicament, he was still Malfoy's patient –that he remembered. Was he in a comma? Was he never going to wake up?

_"__This burning des-… Can you even imagine?" _

_"__Will you please wake up?" _

_"__Harry…"_ he breathed, the voice full, surrounding him now, coming from every direction. His name said so clear, so harmonious. Draco's voice.

_I can't…_ he whispered. _I want to. I want to see you again, but I can't. _He admitted in defeat.

"_I bet you want to go flying one more time, don't you?"_

_Yes I do… but- _

_"__I bet you would want a treacle tart as soon as we are back out, don't you?"_

_Yes… Oh, yes, but- _

_"__I bet you want me to hold you like this once you're better… Would you want that?" _

_I… I would really like that, Dra- _

_"__Why are you not waking up, Harry… Is all my fault." _

_No! It is not… You fixed me… The curse… the curse is n- _

_"__I did this to you… Harry… Merlin Harry, I'm so sorry" _ he heard a sob. Faint, closed, foreign on Draco's voice. _ A sob. _

_Why are you crying? _

_Are you crying for me? _

_Draco I-_

_"__I need to tell you how I feel, Harry… even if I don't know what that is, even if you'll just mock me… I need to let you know, I too, have stolen glimpses of you on streets, kept staring a second too long at your photos… This is ridiculously off-putting, let me tell you,"_ and then he laughed. Through the sobs and then gasps, he breathed, and Harry could feel his smile.

Harry also realized the voice had solidified around him. He was almost sure the pressure on his forehead was Draco too. He wanted to reach it. He wanted to touch that hair he had imagined in his favorite haircut –not admitting that until now. A haircut he could never do on himself obviously, but on Draco was perfection.

_Draco_.

He willed himself, thought himself of touching Draco's hair, of reaching his nothingness-covered hand up to it, and stroke it. And for a second, among all the darkness and flatness around him, he could swear he was filling some strands. Golden, silky, long strands of hair. He thought of them and pulled a little on them, trying to shift the pressure of his head.

Then he heard it, a grunt.

_What_.

He pulled at the imaginary strands again and heard the grunt again.

_"__-rry… -arry…_ Harry!"

With a gasp, he opened his eyes. Opened his real –or at least as real as this was– mind-eyes and looked around him. A cave.

"What," he tried to articulate and found out his throat was cramped, so he croaked instead of talking.

"Salazar's heir! Finally you dare to wake up!" he could hear the lightheartedness behind the reproach. He could feel the relief on Malfoy's voice.

"S'rry… Am I talking in English or...?" he tempted, feeling Draco pulling out of his forehead –finally! – and locking eyes with him.

"I hear you in English. How do you hear yourself?"

"English," he surveyed the cave with weariness. "Those that mean…?"

"I don't know, first we need to destroy this, and then I need to get out of your body," he closed his eyes and took a breath "that sounded better in my head," he admitted.

And Harry laughed. Throat cramped, croakiness and lumps and all, he laughed.

Draco sighed with more relief and stood, helping Harry on the way, too. "So, you need to be the one destroying this thing, believe me I tried. It got you unconscious, so the curse its part of you but here," he motioned around them in a general motion "here, you are king and you reign over everything inside you, even intrusions on your own magic. And needless is to say, that was the plan all along. That is why it was so important for me that you could see what was going on around here, and I think the curse was preventing you to do that too, for these types of treatments not to be effective. Good thing I came with you." He paced through the cave nonchalantly while he talked.

Harry stared at him trying to make sense of all that information. "Okay, I think, so how do I to it?" he asked, clueless.

"Well with magic of course," the other smiled, like it was the most consequent thing to do in this situation.

"Huh, right…?" was the skeptic response of a not-so-sure-about-this Potter just standing there.

"Oh, come on! You are going to tell me you don't know how to use magic now?"

"Of course I know, what I don't know is what kind of magic…" He noticed Draco had his wand at hand. "How did you…? Where is my," he raised his hand and his wand appeared on it in a swoosh. "One mystery less, I guess," he whispered, defeated.

Eyeing the walls, uncertain, Harry raised his hand and pointed them.

"_Expelliarmus_!" he said, a little too brisk. But nothing did happen.

"Maybe something more powerful?" tried Malfoy as the walls remained intact.

"You say that to the spell that defe-"

"Yes, yes, yes. The spell which defeated Voldemort. Blah, blah. Try something powerful," he commanded, trust filling his grey eyes, Harry noticed.

"I think… Maybe it's not power what we need, but something concise," he said as he positioned himself beside Malfoy and pointed at the walls again. "_Finite Incantatem_" he said levelly.

As soon as the spell was out the runes faded, the walls melted, and the flood of colors of Harry's mind, memories and magical currents showered over them. A nice and relieving sight of white, every shade of blue and some dashes of soft pink here and there.

"Well, that did it," admitted Draco, not wanting to look as surprised as he felt.

"So this is what you were looking at when we got here," Harry appreciated as he paced a little, suddenly not wanting to go away from Draco, anymore.

"Nice, isn't it? Your mind," he commented softly "It's so pure it hurts, noble. The pink is what bothers me the most." He was pointing at the dashes-like bubbles floating around them, so faint you had to squint to make them. "I guess, we could work on that later," he taunted with a smirk as he moved towards Harry, extending his hand out "But first we need to get back, I don't know how much time we have been here, but we need to exit your mind and body now that it is cured, before you push me out or something."

Harry reached for him too, offhandedly, taking his hand like someone about to jump from a bridge. "Okay, I am ready, I guess."

"Good. See you outside," was the only warning he got before Draco brushed a quick kiss on his cheek and then seemed to evaporate, and as soon as his hand did, Harry's mind-body started to evaporate too, as if being pleasantly turned into hot steam.


	7. Settling the Rattle

As soon as he opened his eyes, he realized everything was different. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light of the room. The curtains, still spelled black, were dark behind, so it was night all right.

Harry stirred, but stopped immediately after moving some breaths, something was stuck to his middle section. When he looked down, he realized there was a flock of blond slick hair combed meticulously back, prim and symmetric tips brushing the nape of Draco robe's neck, head on top of his stomach. He was lying there with his wand hand on top of Harry's chest, and the other grasping his own wand hand.

Harry gripped back, feeling limp fingers loosen beneath his, a moment after the hand fell to the side of Draco's body. Harry's breath hitched.

"Draco…" he whispered. Rasped, rather. His throat was prone to cramping lately, as he couldn't articulate on the first try. He coughed gently to the side and tried again "D… Hey, Malfoy." He settled for his last name since he wasn't sure he was allowed to first names yet.

But Malfoy didn't move, nor answered.

Alarmed, Harry looked to the table for his wand, and as he reached to take it, a nurse entered the room quietly without knocking or making any sound, but as soon as she saw him up and about, she knew.

The first thing the man noticed was her eyes, how they surveyed everything on a quick swoop. Then she paused for an infinitesimal second as if thinking 'what next?', and smiled to Harry.

"I'm glad to see you awake Mr. Potter, I will be right back," was what she said while she took the doorknob and marched quickly out of the room again.

Not even two minutes after, she was back with a couple Mediwizards and a different Healer. The Mediwizards gathered Draco up gently, and put him on a stretcher outside of the door, closing it behind.

Harry opened his eyes wide when he saw them doing it and was about to ask questions but the Healer –Matthews, this one was– beat him up to the punch.

"Good night Mr. Potter, I hope your journey with Healer Malfoy had been fruitful, I will be conducting some task-end tests on you while the Healer recovers. He is okay, we assure you, and right now, he will be taken to the IC to prevent any spell damage or side effects. Please be at ease about that. Healer Malfoy told us to stress this out enough so you wouldn't be worry, and I guess we all know what it is like for the Savior to be worried over someone," Matthews smiled.

Harry did not like him one bit, his commercial smile and business-like tone. Healer Matthews looked more like an entrepreneur than a doctor.

He went with the roll and nodded in agreement with him.

"So, first of all, we need confirmation that the curse have left your body, starting for the most apparent symptom you showed upon being brought here, so Mr. Potter, can you speak a few lines for me?" The man conjured a quick-quotes quill and parchment –the old-fashioned twat– and stared attentively at him.

"When would I be able to see or know if Healer Malfoy is all right?" he asked nonchalantly, not expecting to be understood but hoping for it.

By the way the Healer's eyes lighted up as he spoke and then dimmed when he got the message, Harry knew he had been cured.

"Magnificent, it seems your speech pattern is back to normal; and to answer your question, as soon as he is up he would be eager to know about you too, so I don't think you need to worry, he'll come at you even before he can, he is rather stubborn and not a friend of hospital beds, he is." Pointed the grey haired man, moving his hand as dismissing the thought of _Draco._ "Now, could you please try speaking parseltongue? We would like to determine whether that would trigger the curse again or not. It is just a thought, we don't think it will do but better safe now than sorry later," He laughed as he had made the joke of the year right there.

Harry sighed and tried a little parseltongue, since he knew the other wouldn't understand him he murmured "_Shut the fuck up,"_ and was partly delighted to notice the whispery undertone to the normal English he would hear while speaking parseltongue.

Matthews just smiled and flicked his wand at Harry in a pair of motions, while the quill recorded everything. The Healer frowned a little but then upped his bottom lip in appreciation, like someone finding something pleasant about something they hated before.

"Seems like everything is in order, I will pass the wonderful news to Healer Malfoy once he is about, he might want to double-check and come and do more tests to you but I'll try to brush him. I will let you tell your kin tomorrow the good wills. Please have a good night then." With that, the middle-aged man went away, leaving him to worry what time it was.

A quick tempus charm chimed 4:47am, and Harry paled. They had been inside him for more than twelve hours straight. No wonder that Draco had being unconscious as soon as he entered his own body back.

Harry shifted and wondered. He was not sleepy, but since he had being not doing much of the spell work and was just lying on a bed instead of sitting or incanting, he thought he got that easy on him.

He decided to get some rest nonetheless. At least to let time go by, at least not to think, because he knew that as soon as he put his mind to work on what happened while Draco was inside him… Not in _that_ way, though –he would have to make sense of all of it. But not tonight. Not right that instant, moreover not alone.

-.-.-

Draco woke to an infuser too sweetly charged for his taste. Same reason he hated hospitals, or anything outside of his office, or house for that matter. Everything was so out of place. Too much or too less of everything. Too much paint, a pillow too less, too much essence on his infuser, too less Harry.

He opened his eyes full at that. _Harry_. Yes. Potter, his patient, but _Harry_, his… Well, Harry.

He needed to see Harry.

Swiftly, he got off the bed, quickly gathering his robes and went to the nurse station and Mediwizard office of his department, noticing the spares halls and empty desks of the other healers on his way there. There were just two nurses playing exploding snap, and a sleeping Mediwizard on the spare stretcher.

"Where is everyone?" he asked with a curt smile to them.

They eyed themselves before starting to pack the cards and get ready for any of the Healers indication. One of them turned to wake the sleeping Mediwizard while vanishing the cards and the other stood and faced Malfoy, addressing him with a short bow.

"They would be coming in the morning, Healer. We were advised to check for you every hour until you woke up, then to feed you and check your vitals," the male nurse –tall and dark, kind of reminded Draco of Dean– stated a little apprehensively, and added "Please do not make this difficult on us," he whispered trying not to plead and failing.

"What- wait, what time it is?" he said and without waiting any answer casted the tempus charm, "Fu-! Salazar, how long have I been out?" He eyed the three of them worried, almost stirring to Harry's room direction.

"A day, yesterday night Mr. Potter regained consciousness whilst you lost it and Healer Matthews took you out as you instructed for the contingency plan" Explained the Mediwizard, now awake and alert, "We carried you to the room and were instructed to tend for you specifically."

"Okay, thank you, but… A day!" as he said this he paced, the nurses looked at each other with uneasiness. "I need to check on Ha- Mr. Potter and make sure the spell worked," he paced a little more.

At this statement, the other nurse –a petite redhead with dimples–, rapidly produced a parchment and presented it to Malfoy. "Healer Matthews already ran your tests, as instructed, and recorded all the results here. He ran some more tests today in the morning as well." She waited until her chief took the parchment to comment, "I also spoke a little with Mr. Potter and he seems to be in good spirits. Healer Mathews was waiting for you to wake up so you could issue his release after you inspected him for yourself, since he is your patient and all."

"So it worked," he assessed while reading eagerly through the file, the good thing about Orpheus Matthews was that he worked meticulously and wrote down every single little detail, the major reason why Draco had requested him to be his Plan B for Harry's case.

Draco lifted his gaze from the file to his three companions; one of them already had a tray with food on it, and the Mediwizard was taking the file from him "I will take this to your office; in the meantime, you could really use the food, sir." And he dissaparated with the papers without further ado.

Draco sighed resigned, it was really late indeed and he wasn't tired but his body felt weak; Harry was fine and probably sleeping. He decided to go along with these three and give in.

_In a couple hours, _he thought_, I would be able to see him again in a couple hours._

-.-.-

The room was filled with voices, two, four, six voices in total. He was pretty sure they were there in violation of some hospital visiting rule. Nevertheless, where Harry Potter was involved, there were almost no rules at all, or they seemed to break like ice around him. Either or.

He knocked twice, firm, and waited. He hated the idea of interrupting the visits or even more; get all the stares he was sure going to get. But his mind was reeling, palms itchy by the anxiety. He needed to make sure the man was okay.

Hermione opened the door to him, and smiled as bright as the sun. Jokingly, he put a hand to his eyes and backed half a step away, "Woah, there. Careful or you will blind a Healer," he smiled a little as well, cutting himself some slack.

"Good morning to you as well Malfoy. Harry is up; I can have the room cleared for you in a minute if you like." She turned to do just that, but he grabbed her shoulder softly.

"That won't be necessary, I just need to run a couple of tests and be out again, I missed a day of work and need to catch up on all the other patients, but I needed to check on Ha- him first because he was the most difficult after all," he corrected, with a levelled smile in place.

Something caught up on Hermione's left eyebrow, as it twitched slightly but then she was smiling again and turning, door held. "Alright, please do come in then."

So did Draco, wishing everyone in the room a general Good morning and shifting his glance directly to Harry, so he will not have to dwell on any face, remember anything unnecessary and make the wrong apologies, even if it was all said before.

"Potter, how are we feeling?" was his only question, wand out already, he took a good look at the other before starting the tests. There was Harry all right: askew glasses –not round anymore–, goofy smile showing how happy and rested he was, bright green eyes, not acid green. Messy and thick brown hair, full rosy lips with a little watery shine –he sipped some water, Draco noticed the glass still on his hand– skin soft and with a flock of soft dark-pink spots here and there. A normal perfect sight of Harry.

"As good as ever, I think," a smile adorned Harry's answer, he quickly added "I am sorry the spell got a lot out of you, but it worked just fine." Simple wording, that was his style, Draco noticed too.

"Never you mind, that is what we are here for," he dismissed the other apology with that, and started on the tests, a little too fast, but still precise. Hoping his desire to get out of the dozen eyes attached to his back as soon as possible won't show on his wand movements. "Done, I will come later on for a final more thorough test before your release. Until then."

"Release? So soon?" the brown-haired asked, brow furrowed, as if wanting to stay right there, under Draco's gaze.

"Well, yeah," he answered with a light smile "Your condition is as good as ever, you said it yourself. Once I make sure there is no trace of the curse on any part of your body, then you can go home." The smile kept its place, leaving certain tone on the 'any part of your body' sentence, fly in the air indifferently.

"Okay…" Harry willed, "Yeah, that's good," he smiled lightly as well, playing Draco's game without even knowing.

The blonde was not in the mood for more words, so he nodded, bowed his head curtly for the other and waved his way to the door. Task done.

Harry, in the midst and burst of cheers for his upcoming release, the plans, the welcoming party preparations and everything else the others were saying that he wasn't hearing; filled his mind with images of Malfoy. The worst time to do it, as he got a full day for that, but maybe, it was as good as any time now.

_We will have a chance this afternoon, to talk about that. Certainly, it was nothing._ He thought, nodding politely when he heard his name followed by a question. _He acted as if nothing happened, if not, he would have had the room cleared and told me something… Is he waiting for things to go naturally? Or maybe he was just being reassuring. These things can happen, patients thinking they have feelings for their Healer._

He frowned unconsciously. _No, that is not right at all._ He was not feeling anything for his Healer. He was feeling things for Draco, the man beneath the green robes and professional undertone. He had had these thoughts before, a good while before; on the weeks after the trials preceding the war, on occasions where he would catch images of Malfoy on the Quibbler or the Time Setter, on occasions he would catch Malfoy going about his business on wizarding and muggle neighborhoods.

This was not a foreign feeling for Harry at all. But it was off-putting to have that feeling returned, or the hope of it at least.

He sighed and then noticed the silence surrounding him so he looked sharply up, to everyone, staring at him strangely.

"Sorry, what?" he said in case they were waiting an answer from him.

"You spaced out a good ten minutes there mate, everything all right?" Ron asked, tilting his head a little, he did that lately when he thought he knew the answer to something. Often he was wrong.

"Yeah, I was thinking that I don't really want a welcome back party," trying to sound as casual as he could, he continued, "Having you all in good health too and around me is more than enough."

"Oh! Nonsense! You know well by now that we will do it regardless," was the reply from Mrs. Weasly, holding baby Rose on her arms. "Do not talk us out of doing it; you better think what kind of cake filling you'd rather want." She bought the whole thing, so the others followed suit on the argument, as not to rude her out on something she missed. Or maybe she played it off for Harry not to talk about what he was really thinking. With Molly, you never knew which one was it.

-.-.-

Draco lied. He lied a lot; it was part of his job. Even when he tried to be straightforward and honest with most of his patients, he lied.

Draco lied to himself too. He lied about not wanting to eat when people offered to take him in for lunch in the middle of a complicated treatment or potion brewing. He lied about being able to handle a greater load of patients on his early Healer days when everyone expected him to excel just because of his reputation.

He lied about being tired; he lied about having enough sleep. He lied to a nurse when he said he did not like her when she asked him out. He lied a lot to himself. He was getting used to it by now. It was an ill-mannered habit.

So when Harry asked him if he was all right that afternoon when he went to his room for the final check-up. He lied then too.

"I am fine, Potter," he chided, running his wand one more time over the others left leg with a different spell. "The dark circles are my face adornment and the long lapses of fasting are a sport. Everything is normal." He didn't believe that.

"If you say so." Harry, on the other hand seemed to believe him. Or wanted to, by any means. If your Healer is not okay, where does that leave you? "So you think I am cured for good?"

"No. Actually, your mind needs some treatment, maybe we could get rid of that stubbornness of yours in the process," Malfoy chanted as he ran the right leg with the same spells. "You are totally cured, and the scanning is showing above average levels for the even normal levels," he sighed, "Everything is fine."

"You don't seem like everything is fine," the other said, keeping with the drilling of information, "You know I have several methods of extortion and non-painful torture at my disposal, I can get the answers out of just about anybody," he tempted.

"Wow, extorting a Healer, that's a new low even for you, Potter," despite his bashful tone, Malfoy was smirking. "Give it a try, you might get the numbers for the Powerball," he joked.

"How do you…"

"Know muggle American lottery? Cut me some slack Potter, I am not as enclosed anymore as I used to be," the blonde said eyeing him spitefully.

"Okay. Will you tell me what is wrong if I say please, then?" he tried with a little hope, one more time.

Malfoy stopped his movements altogether, resting his hands to the border of Harry's bed, where he saw the other prop himself on one elbow to better look at him, since he was laying down for the scanning while the blonde sat. Draco didn't look at him, he looked to the floor instead, trying to create figures with the mosaic's creases.

Everything was fine, he thought. Except for the fact that his mind was not able to place entirely what happened with Harry on their little magical mind trip, on a logical order. He tried to make sense of it, but he couldn't. Then the feeling he got when hearing Harry speaking parseltongue, he could not place that in any order either.

He sighed silently, and looked up to Harry, full on his beautiful green eyes.

"I don't know," he muttered, "what is wrong, I mean. I thought I could brush past what happened on your mind, what I saw, what I said. It seems I will not be able too. And you won't give me a break for it," he reproached. "Do you, do you even remember anything?" he asked, hoping a negative answer.

"Everything. I remember all of it. Once I was awake, it all played out like a movie," said Harry, tone sincere and collected, shattering all of Draco's hopes to hear otherwise, "that is why I am not giving you a break." The force of his voice was enough for Draco to know the intention.

"So?" he braved.

"That would be my question, Draco. So, did you mean it? What you said in there? Or was it Healer-Patient treatment?" probed Harry, eyes keeping the gaze.

Tricky question, this was. On the one hand, he could lie again and say he didn't mean anything, it would leave and impasse for both and be the easiest thing to do. Play it off, as it had been a weakness moment, get his prissy act together, even if it had been years since he had acted like that, like when he was at Hogwarts.

On the other hand, he could tell the truth, admit it all and be at ease with himself, for once. Stop the lies and stop the pang in his heart at seeing the face Harry was making, under the poker layout he was trying to make, he could see all the dances of genuine insecurity behind the other's green eyes.

He shook his head, "I mean it," he confessed simply, holding the eye contact still.

Harry sighed, contentedness washing over him as he closed his eyes and fell back on the bed, "Okay," he breathed, then moved his hand as in a 'proceed' motion.

"What? I am not going to charade flailing love for my former nemesis, Potter, Love is not that simple," he scoffed, crossing a leg and looking away.

Harry laughed at that, snorts, spew, vociferously laughed with mirth. "I was not expecting that, Oh my," he said when he calmed, looking at Draco with a big smile now, "I just motioned for you to proceed with the scan, not with your words. I heard what I wanted to hear."

"Is that all then? You hear what you want and everything is equilibrated on the universe again?" Draco reproached.

At this, Harry sat on the bed, smile fading a little, but playfully small on his lips, "Well, no. Now we figure this out… Now we _open up to each other,_" he said, finishing with a sentence in parseltongue, purposely so the other won't catch its meaning.

"I'm sorry, what?" was Malfoy's only comeback, not daring to hide the goosebumps showing on his arms and neck. "I know you are, but what am I?" teased the other, arching a brow.

"I'm just saying," stated Harry rolling his eyes, "we have time to sort this thing, whatever it is, whatever it turns out," he continued, all but looking happy as a kid at Fortescue's. "I say we give it time and take it from there."

"You are frighteningly fond of the idea of you and I dating and I don't know what is more off-putting, the idea or the reality," declared the Healer with a sneer and his brow arched still.

"No, I am happy because I am cured," he chanted playfully.

"You are still cursed somewhere in the head, I am sure," whispered the blond standing up. "Whatever is cooking up in that mind of yours, keep me out. I am a renowned Healer, I have a tight schedule." He was pocketing his wand an approaching the door already.

Then Harry just shot, "Maybe the renown Healer can catch up with the renown Auror sometime next Saturday, at six for instance?" he looked up to him, sheepishly at being the one asking it out.

"Oh, well," Draco looked around for something to say, shifting his weight anxiously from one foot to the other, "Saturday, huh?" He brushed his hair back in a fluid motion, and even when it was brisk in seemed nonchalant. "I guess I could free up some time around six to make that happen," he concluded, rapidly opening the door, "But you will have to wait for my owl confirmation," Draco winked in Harry's general direction with a flirty smile and was out of the room before the other could summon him back.

Harry sat there open-mouthed at Draco's move. Any way it turned out, they seemed to have a date now.


	8. A Serpent's Lair

_**Last chapter! It has been a longer journey than expected, I am sorry it took so long to reach this stage but we are finally here and I hope you all enjoy it!**_  
_**As I asked before, I have an idea for a one shot after this, kind of a side story, but I don't really want to rush or push the story any further... so I will leave it to you guys to decide if you want more in the reviews :) **_

* * *

Saturday came as the most horrible day for dating in history, as told by Malfoy, who was waiting near an apparition point for Potter to show up, with an umbrella tightly held on his left hand and his body as still as a log under it.

Above, the sky was grenading water. Hail would be a much better weather, Draco thought, since the drops were so big and so many, that the Impervius charm on his boots and trousers was almost not enough to hold them back.

Harry was not late. Draco had been early to their rendezvous point, and so, exposed to the wraith of nature earlier. Although, the other didn't take long to apparate beside him as the clock stroked past six p.m. Looking alarmed to see Draco there first, under the pouring rain he was probably not expecting, as he stepped under Malfoy's umbrella and brushed off the water that made it to his clothes.

"Hullo, Malfoy," he said casting some quick drying and water-repellant charms on himself, "Magnificent weather we are having," he squinted to the pitch black sky on the horizon, promising even more water.

"Only you would say that," Draco considered, maneuvering the umbrella between them. "I hope this place you mentioned has a ceiling. At least."

"I am afraid it does," he smiled, "But that should be of no problem, we could eat on the terrace," he commented as he motioned to a path east, and they fell into an even step side by side under the rain.

"Oh, and what, may I ask, are we going to eat? Seafood?" the other joked, sounding displeased with the whole deal, but sticking along with Harry.

"Bah, bland. Can you make a funnier joke? You could have suggested watermelon, I'll give you another try," he said, not looking anywhere but ahead, showing the nervousness his jokes were trying to hide.

"Watermelon? Seriously?" Malfoy just played his game, he was somewhat anxious as well, but talking made it easier.

"Yes, we shouldn't take long now, let's turn here," the man motioned to a closed alley and felt the arm that was holding the umbrella tense. "Oh, come on! You are a wizard and you tense when you go into an alley, what are you, batman?"

"I still don't know what is this place and why is in the middle of muggle London, so yes, I would tense with or without magic." Despite, his arm relaxed somewhat.

Harry just chuckled and stopped at the end of the alley, wand on hand already, tapped two times on the darkest brick on the wall. The wall started to shimmer away and then presented a couple of wooden doors, tightly closed.

"Uh, oh," was what came out of Harry's mouth, wide-eyed, turned to Draco with an apprehensive expression. "Normally the doors would be open… it's, a magical garden, rain shouldn't be a problem and I called just yesterday to check. They serve the best kind of oriental teas and dishes, I," the man grumbled looking form the door to Draco's face minutely.

The blonde put a hand to the other's shoulder to make him settle. "You are rambling," he said simply. "We can come another day, maybe next Friday, we could–"

"No, no. I wanted to spend this time with you so we could clear out what happened on the hospital, and we are going to do just that. We don't need a fancy place, we could go to my flat if you are okay with that?" he asked, a little sheepishly.

Malfoy sighed and considered the idea. In spite of the rain, it was early and he got until Sunday night to return to St. Mungo, he made sure to have ample time to recover from whatever shock he had to go through today with Potter. Now the idea of going to Harry's place was up, he hadn't count on that.

After Harry's hospital stay they had not been in contact except for the couple of owls they have exchanged to settle the 'confirmation' and the coordinates of the apparition point they used. Harry was released from St. Mungo without much distress and his friends were there with him on his last day, just the main two though, thanking everybody involved and dealing roses to the nurses, Mediwizards and Healers apiece. Malfoy got a bouquet of narcissuses, which he appreciated.

After a heartbeat of thinking, and when Harry was growing noticeably shaken by the silence, the Healer sighed and assented.

-.-.-

The apartment was nice. And it was not Grimmauld place, thank Merlin. Surprisingly, it was in a neutral neighborhood, inhabited by muggles but mostly by wizards and witches.

Harry guided him up two flies of stairs and to the farthest door on the right side of a three-way hallway. He put out the wards on the door and let him in without a word. Silence was the new nervousness indication.

Draco stepped in, and the first thing he noticed was that the apartment was nice. The living room walls were an orangey color, _salmon_ he thought later. One of the walls, the first one you saw upon entering, ran up to the kitchen and was covered in planks of wood, some were juxtaposed on top of others and had lights behind them, making the wall glow, the only light on the space, but it was enough and produced a cozy feeling, sun-light-leaking through-wood feeling.

The furniture was another deal. A beige loveseat seemed new and unused right in front of the wooden wall, a worn out caramel-colored comfort chair on the right corner of the flat, flanked by a wide windowsill decorated with several terrariums on one side and a shelve of books and a TV to the other side, lined up to the loveseat. The coffee table in the middle was a piece of art; it looked like the base was the 3D painting of roots, and the top was a thin and oddly shaped tree trunk, you could see the rings clearly under the glass that secured it.

On the left side, the kitchen sported much brighter colors in lime and pastel yellow and drop-like light bulbs hanging here and there giving it more light. It was a nice modern contrast from the rustic touch of the other room.

Malfoy took the sight in pleasantly, as Harry took his jacket off and hung it behind the door, extending his hand to him, so he took off his too and handed it over.

"So, um, welcome, I think, I hope you find it to your liking, is not a manor but is nice," said his host.

_Nice_. That it was.

"I am fairly impressed to tell you the truth," he appreciated, smirking, "I was expecting a shit hole, the contrast is welcomed." He just shrugged hoping the other wouldn't take his comment at heart.

Harry made a little nervous laugh while he rubbed his hands on his jeans, and then hauled the sleeves of his navy blue sweater up to his elbows. "Uh, please take a seat," he pointed the loveseat but in a motion that suggested he could seat on the comfort chair as well. "Since the plan was dinner, I will fix something real quick." He was already stepping in the space that divided the kitchen with the main room, which was a made-shift 'island' attached to the wall made on black bricks with high seats on the side of the kitchen.

Draco arched is brow, "Can I help?"

"Well, actually yeah," he said now fully on the kitchen and starting to take things out. Doing this motion seems to calm the other man considerably. "You can tell me what you'd like to have for dinner. I don't have a menu but I can make virtually everything?" he said uncertainly and eyed Draco with suspicion, "but nothing too fancy," he finished.

"Right," Malfoy pursed his lips, "And how do I trust your cooking skills?"

"Well, I wasn't starved to death when I was brought into the hospital, just cursed," he smirked.

"Point given," Malfoy looked at what Harry was taking out, "So what's in the menu?" he asked even when it was stated that there wasn't one.

Harry rolled his eyes and looked at the ingredients, "the _options_ are steak, salmon or shrimp, chicken. Or it could be pasta, or if you are on some sort of diet I can make a respectable vegetable stir-fry."

"No diet, but I haven't been eating healthy either," he mused. "I guess the stir-fry would be fine, and definitely salmon," Malfoy commented already seated on one of the stools and with his chin propped up his arm, leaning forward to see the kitchen better.

Harry nodded sharply and moved around taking things out and moving things in, seeming a lot more comfortable now that he was apparently doing what he felt like common ground. Malfoy thought about that, it was a good sight, Harry moving confidently, although he could see a little stiffness on the other's shoulders still.

Potter didn't mind, or it looked like he didn't, being seen while he cooked. As he chopped things away with ease, he looked like one of those guys in cooking programs.

After minutes of silence, and once Harry was apparently not that concentrated with a knife, Draco said, "Is this what you'd rather do if you weren't an Auror?"

Harry turned to him, pushing up his glasses a little; he tilted his head, "Huh?"

"Cooking," he clarified, "Is cooking what you would rather do if you were not an Auror?" he posed the question again, with a clear voice.

The other looked back at the food and then at the blonde, puzzled. "Oh, well, shouldn't you be asking that after you try this?" he pointed at the pan.

Malfoy shrugged. "Your lack of confidence might be disturbing, but at least my sense of smell is really keen," he tapped his nose gently, "Potions master, remember?"

"Your point being?" he huffed, turning to pour some other things on the pan and stir its content with some decisive motions, flipping the content of the pan in the air and then using the utensil just to spread them out.

"That, it smells very good, you are selling yourself short." He pursed his lips at the flip, "You even know how to do that with the pan."

Harry turned his head and looked at him over his shoulder, "It's called a wok, and no, I am not selling myself in any way, it is just…" he looked again at the food, turning the salmon over and then taking it out of the heat, leaving the vegetables a couple more minutes. "I haven't think of what I'd rather do once I'm not an Auror. It seems like I would be doing that until I retire."

"Shame," Malfoy mussed eyeing him and hopping out of the stool. "Where do you store the dishes?" he asked offhandedly entering into the kitchen.

"Sit down Malfoy, you are my guest you don't have to do that," he reproached.

"I do not, but I will anyway," he started looking for them by himself, as the other wasn't contributing, so Harry just gave in and told him. Promptly the tabletop on the island was lined up with little oval tablecloths, squared black plates, tall thin crystal glasses and very slick, modern-designed cutlery. He even placed two cloth napkins folded into orchids on top of each plate.

When Harry approached the island to place the food on the heat stoppers, he raised his eyebrows appreciatively. "Wow," he just said as he wiped his hands on a towel, handing it to Draco who just finished rising his hands as well. "I didn't know my stuff could look that well."

"You took the word out of my mouth," the blonde said sitting down on his stool again, looking longingly at what was served. The vegetables shone and he was sure they were crunchy even when there were copious amounts of brown looking sauce over them, probably sweet and sour. The salmon was rosy and full-bodied, thick with meat. He swallowed.

"Only way to find out," Harry smiled and raised a fork up to him, serving Draco's plate. Once both plates were filed, he waited for the other to bit first. His heart pumping, nerves on edge.

Malfoy didn't make a big deal on his first bite. He speared one of each of the veggies and took a piece of the fish, which slid through the fork like water. However, once the food touched his palates, the blonde closed his eyes and sighed deeply, throaty, almost like a moan.

Harry shivered. "Well?" he whispered, starting to eat finally.

Draco opened his eyes dazedly and looked at Harry with new eyes. "What? Do I need to use words?" was the remark, and he kept eating contentedly.

Harry just snorted, shaking his head a little, falling into silence as they ate.

-.-.-

It was nine p.m. already, and Draco could swear this night was all kinds of odd. Outside was still raining, swiftly now, as he could see thinner drops hitting on the ample windows. Dinner had been a success even when Potter tried to convince him it had just been _normal_. He kept praising him teasingly over the course of it. Afterwards, Harry made them dessert. Something very simple but gloriously good as a shot of espresso with a big spoon of custard-flavored ice cream. They made small talk while facing each other in the loveseat, Harry had one leg up his side of the seat, in which he balanced his cup and saucer, while Draco just had one crossed over the other, cup and saucer already empty on the coffee table.

_"__This is nice,_" thought Draco looking over the window as Harry put the cups away.

"We could do it more often, then," answered Harry softly, as he took his seat again beside him.

Draco jumped a little. Had he just said that aloud? "Do what?" he muttered pretending not to admit he had just said that.

"Well, have dinners here, or just talk, we can still meet up and go to that place we were supposed to, before," he explained as he brushed his hair with his hand and Draco followed the hand and suddenly wanted to try that too. "I don't know, _this_, as you said."

"I don't think you'll withstand me being around you that much time." He looked around as to distract himself from the sight of _Harry_. "I am very obnoxious, you know?"

"I know, I don't care," he looked up shrugging; "I am very stubborn and impulsive, you know?" he countered. Draco was expecting that so he backed up a little on the seat and acted as if surprised. "You don't say," was his retort. Harry kicked his thigh softly with his foot.

"Prat," he said.

_I know. _Draco thought, just smirking at Harry. "Yeah, we could do this more often," he admitted. "We haven't got a chance to sort anything out, and I don't know about you but today is not that kind of day," he stretched his legs a little but resumed shortly his upright position. Harry kicked him again.

"You can relax here, you know?" he said inquisitively raising his eyebrows, "It is not like I haven't beat you down and got what I wanted before," he joked, leaning into the armrest smugly.

"Ha, bloody ha. I can still duel you, now with my eyes closed. Try to cast a snake on me again though; I think I know more on that too now, thanks to that curse… Do you know that there are over three thousand snake species and 375 of those are venomous? I memorized the name of all 375," he exaggerated a shudder.

Harry smiled warmly and looked Draco full in the eyes. "You know I wanted this to be a Thank You dinner, but it really isn't enough," he whispered and sighed a little. "And I really need to say it regardless, so thank you for curing me, Draco."

_And thank you for giving me this chance too._ He thought, still smiling.

"Never you mind, just doing what I do," brushed off the Healer, trying not to blush under that smile. His neck was hot. "Just try to be careful out there, I will be here to get you back up, but there will be a time when your luck runs out," he scolded, but kept a light tone.

"What would be of the savior without his personal savior," said Harry, smirking now, teasingly.

"Oh, please, you're not that special," scoffed the other turning again to the window.

"No but you are,"

"That's right," he joked.

"No, seriously, Draco, you are." The voice, warm and even, surrounded him pleasantly. Or was it his imagination? "Draco, look at me," Harry's voice pleaded, a little too close to his ear. Was that his imagination too?

Draco had no time to find out, since as soon as he turned, he felt a pair of lips plunging his down. The touch burned and a hand rested on his shoulder now, he took the elbow attached to it for balance and got the chance to run a hand through those brown curls he fancied so much.

Harry kissed him briefly, not asking, not demanding, just sharing; sharing all the new feelings both were harboring now.

Harry whispered something in between kisses and Draco was sure it sounded like bloody parseltongue, but he couldn't give a damn now. He was getting what he wanted.

_This is nice_. He thought again, realizing they got all the time in the world now to figure things out.

END.


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